arranged by Trespalacios. This incident drove Milam and some of his friends to plot to kill Trespalacios, and when that plot was discovered, Milam was again imprisoned. Milam and his friends were sent to Mexico City, where they were held until the fall of 1822, when Joel R. Poinsett, U.S. Commissioner of Observation to Mexico, secured their freedom. With the exception of Milam, all were returned to the United States on the sloop-of-war USS John Adams. By the spring of 1824, Milam had returned to Mexico, which was adopting the new republican form of government established by the 1824 Constitution of Mexico. Trespalacios and Milam reconciled, and Milam was granted Mexican citizenship and commissioned as a colonel in the Mexican Army. Texas Revolution In 1825, Milam and Arthur G. Wavell, an English general in the Mexican Army, became partners in a silver mine operation in Nuevo León. The two also obtained empresario grants in Texas. In 1829, Milam sought to organize a new mining company in partnership with David G. Burnet, but their efforts failed due to a lack of funds. Milam and Wavell's empresarial efforts also failed when their contract was canceled by the Mexican government for an insufficient supply of new citizens for their colony in Texas, following a new law passed in 1830. In 1835, Milam went to Monclova, the capital of Coahuila y Texas, to urge the new governor, Agustín Viesca, to send a land commissioner to Texas to provide settlers there with land titles. However, before Milam could leave the city, word arrived that Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna had overthrown the representative federal government and established a dictatorship. Governor Viesca fled with Milam, but both were captured and imprisoned at Monterrey. Milam eventually escaped thanks to sympathetic jailers, who also supplied him with a horse. By chance, Milam encountered a company of Texian soldiers commanded by George Collinsworth, from whom he learned of the movement for independence in Texas. Milam joined them, helping to capture Goliad on October 10, 1835. He wrote: "I assisted Texas to gain her independence. I have endured heat and cold, hunger and thirst; I have borne losses and suffered persecutions; I have been a tenant of every prison between this and Mexico. But the events of this night have compensated me for all my losses and all my sufferings." Siege of Béxar He then joined the main